


and he was beautiful

by yawawoo



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, feels trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 02:39:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14728388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yawawoo/pseuds/yawawoo
Summary: Minhyuk and Kihyun sat down across each other  on one beautiful, sunny morning, with farewells on the tips of their tongues.





	and he was beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [averyblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/averyblue/pseuds/averyblue) :')

It was a beautiful, sunny morning.

They were seated across each other, their bare dining table with faint coffee rings littering its light blue surface between them. It wasn’t big, just enough for two, but Minhyuk felt like there were thousands of miles, thousands of swallowed words separating him from Kihyun.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning and they didn’t look at each other.

Kihyun had been the one who insisted that they put the table right below the only window in their apartment. At first, Minhyuk was annoyed at how he kept bumping into it whenever he woke up in the middle of the night to get some water from the sink. He couldn’t remember when he stopped hating it and made it his second favorite spot in the apartment. (His first used to be their bed, but that felt like an event in a history book.)

He couldn’t remember when, but he clearly remembered why. One day they were having breakfast, heated pizza because Minhyuk wouldn’t let Kihyun get up, had Kihyun in his arms and kissed his bruised shoulders, and the sun spilled from between the clouds, through the glass and the simple white curtains, and the way it fell on Kihyun and made him glow was so beautiful.

Minhyuk could recall the faint stubble on his face (and what it felt like on his neck, the back of his hand) and maybe count his individual lashes that cast shadows on his cheeks. His hair was an artistic mess, collarbones dotted with purple blots and exposed because Minhyuk’s shirt was too big on him.

Minhyuk remembered how full his heart was, waking up to warm meals and a beautiful, sharp profile side-eyeing him playfully, remembered prickly leg hairs as they played footsie and high-pitched laughter as they competed in saying the cheesiest lines.

Minhyuk traced coffee rings with his index finger, legs curled far underneath the chair he was sitting on. Kihyun was leaning back on the wall the table was pushed against, the metal sill of the window digging into the back of his tilted head, to the left, so that he didn’t have to see Minhyuk from the corner of his eye. They hadn’t said anything. They woke up, Minhyuk on the couch, Kihyun on their bed, and before they knew it, they both had gravitated here. Kihyun was the one who pushed open the curtains. His succulents needed the sun, and maybe they both needed the warmth on their cold skins.

It had been left hanging for about two weeks. The idea about how they should end this. Kihyun was the one who said it first, with cold unseeing eyes after they both ran out of energy from screaming at each other. That night, Kihyun came back drunk off his mind and Minhyuk glared at him in the hallway because they were supposed to have dinner with Kihyun’s mom. Kihyun’s phone had been dead since the afternoon and then Minhyuk’s had died because he threw it across the room. 

 

_“I had to lie to your mom! This is the third time, Kihyun!”_

_“You should’ve just told her the truth!”_

_“How could I say to her that I didn’t know where her son was?!”_

_“No, you should’ve just told her that we’re not working.”_

 

Minhyuk didn’t cry afterwards; he just gathered up his pillow and blanket, leaving his whale stuffed toy behind because Kihyun fell asleep on it, and slept on the couch. It was just silence and more silence, and it was amazing how Minhyuk clammed up every time he entered the small apartment and Kihyun was washing the dishes, his back facing Minhyuk, a tense line on his shoulders. Most days they only saw each other in the mornings, Kihyun working overtime and Minhyuk taking longer routes from the gallery and sitting in three different coffee shops for hours. Suddenly it was like they never went out of their way trying to find jobs that would allow them to come home at the same time and spend the weekend together.

Minhyuk didn’t cry, but Kihyun’s words echoed as clearly as his breathless ‘I love you’s in his head, and Minhyuk didn’t know what to feel. He just wanted the silence to end. He just wanted _something_ to end so that he could start anew and stop feeling guilty from lying about his relationship. He wanted to stop feeling sorry for them, and he missed Kihyun’s smiles and silly little dances even though they wouldn’t be for him anymore. Minhyuk hated how their world was at a standstill with no one but themselves to blame.

So maybe today was the day. So maybe this was the moment where they should talk about it and see where it would go. Minhyuk didn’t know where they could go. He could only hope, but Kihyun was still turned away from him.

Minhyuk took too long deciding on what he should say—and it was strange, because Minhyuk never thought much about the words that left his mouth—so Kihyun beat him to it.

“I think we should talk about what I said,” and perhaps it hurt Minhyuk a little, how steady his voice was.

“Yeah,” Minhyuk croaked, swallowing around a dry throat. He kept tracing the overlapping circles. _Eights. Infinity. Not what we are, apparently._

Minhyuk couldn’t help but glance up when Kihyun suddenly shifted in his chair. And Minhyuk couldn’t go back to his silent prayers because in front of him was Kihyun, bathed in the sunlight, finally looking at him. And Minhyuk really, really adored the lines of his face; his perfect nose and the tiny pores on them, his perpetually pushed out bottom lip, his dark eyes turning light and ethereal under the sunlight. Minhyuk adored the faint lines around them and the ones that appear around his mouth when he was smiling wide; Minhyuk wished Kihyun would let him borrow his camera more often, and teach him how to use it, because there weren’t enough picture of him.

“You’re so beautiful,” Minhyuk said, and Kihyun’s face contorted into a mixture of surprise and pain and a frown was marring his face. Kihyun looked down and shrunk into himself. Minhyuk didn’t realize what he just said until he realized what he’d done. But he felt light because finally he wasn’t lying; finally he wasn’t swallowing his own words and thinking too much about what to say. At that moment, despite everything else, Yoo Kihyun looked ethereal under the morning sun, and Minhyuk said it, and he didn’t regret it.

 

* * *

 

“You’re so beautiful,” Kihyun heard him say, and his chest had never felt pain so intense that he had to hunch over and grip his knees so that he didn’t start shaking. His vision blurred and he let the tears fall, watching as one, two—five and counting—wet spots formed on the fabric covering his thighs. The sun was shining on him but he felt so cold. He hugged himself but he still felt like he was in a dark tunnel without an end, alone with his ugly thoughts echoing around him.

 

_You’re hurting him._

_Minhyuk doesn’t deserve this._

_Why are we like this? Why are_ you _like this?_

_He said you’re beautiful._

_He’s not talking about the person I am right now._

 

Kihyun didn’t know what went wrong. They had been together for four years, friends for seven, and this dining table had been Kihyun’s favorite spot from the very first day they moved into the apartment two years ago. He insisted they place it here, because the first time he saw how there was a perfect square of sunlight on the floor when they first came to take a look, he could immediately picture the breathtaking scene he wanted to capture with his camera. He could imagine—and he made it come true—how beautiful Minhyuk would be with the sun shining down on him. Kihyun could spend hours looking at the shadows on the soft planes of Minhyuk’s face. Kihyun’s favorite part was when Minhyuk smiled brightly and how it made him proud that the man in front of him rivaled the sun. And Minhyuk was his. Kihyun loved Minhyuk, and the way his black fringes fell over his eyes, the uneven blinks, his breathless, soundless laughs as he doubled over because Kihyun was being ridiculous.

And Kihyun took that all away from him because he was selfish and confused.

Kihyun didn’t know what went wrong, what caused it. Was it stress from work? Did they run out of time? Kihyun didn’t know what caused it, but he knew he was the first one to realize that their mornings had started to become silent and dull, their conversations stilted, their backs turned against each other at night. Was it because he lied about being fine while he wasn’t? Was it because Kihyun chose not to say anything when Minhyuk went to his school reunion and had to be carried back home by his former high school sweetheart because he was drunk? Did Kihyun let jealousy fester in him and let it eat him up inside and steal his words from him? Because Minhyuk hated alcohol. Why was he drunk? Why didn't they call him?

 

_“He’s working for H company now. And I thought I dumped a good-for-nothing. But his breath smelled and he burned all the samgyeopsal on our table, so I really don’t need him in my life, do I? Kihyun-ah, slow down, you’re going to grate your fingers too at this point.”_

 

Yes. Kihyun let jealousy grow and put words into his mouth. Words that he didn’t mean, stealing and locking away all the things Kihyun really wanted to say. He thought he knew better than to take Minhyuk’s every word to heart, knew not to overthink about what he said, but what happened—and what he didn’t know happened—during and after the reunion grazed the wrong nerves and sparked ugly emotions inside him. Kihyun didn’t say anything because they had been together for so long. One of the things Kihyun was most proud about in life was the fact that he knew Lee Minhyuk the best.

Maybe they were simply not working anymore, because Kihyun was too scared and it was too late for him to say anything, because Minhyuk had glared at him so fiercely, so disappointedly. Kihyun hated how it was so easy to fall back to his bad habit of drinking his sorrows away—he thought it stopped in high school, forgotten when he met the noisy handsome boy that was Lee Minhyuk at the university anime club.

Kihyun lived with ugly thoughts in his head for two weeks. He’d prepared himself for the worst—ending it, losing Minhyuk. Their fights had always been filled with raised voices, but never screams that hurt their throats, but this time Minhyuk was silent after, just quietly distancing himself from Kihyun, and didn’t even cry. And that threw Kihyun off his loop. The silence and the tension and the eyes that always turn away from him.

Kihyun lived with ugly thoughts, and yet Minhyuk just called him beautiful.

It came as a shock when there were hands pulling him into a hug, and when Kihyun inhaled sharply he could smell Minhyuk and his soap and he choked and shuddered. There were goosebumps on Kihyun’s skin. His core was shaking because Minhyuk was so close and touching him, and missing him hurt so much. Kihyun sobbed and clutched at Minhyuk’s arms. Kihyun loved him so much.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I love you,” Kihyun said into the crook of Minhyuk’s neck. A place he’d missed, enveloped in his arms, digging his chin into his shoulder.

Minhyuk stroked his hair frantically, gripping the back of his head and pushing Kihyun’s face even closer. “Shh, Kihyun-ah, I love you too. I love you so much, I’ll make us work, alright?”

Kihyun shook his head. _It’s my fault_ , he wanted to say, but Minhyuk pulled away to look into his eyes, and they both had tears streaming down their face. _It was both of us, we are both to blame_.

Perhaps it was true; they should have said something, should have pushed each other for more honest answers and realize that it was alright to not always know what the other was thinking, that it was alright to admit that they still had a long way to go to figure each other out, even though it felt like they never lived a live without each other.

Kihyun put his hand on Minhyuk’s cheeks and pulled him close, touched their foreheads and noses together. Minhyuk did the same, and the sun was shining on both of them. “We’re in this together, right, Minhyukkie?”

Minhyuk sniffed and nodded, and Kihyun smiled at him, wiping the wetness above his lips, leaning in to kiss it. It tasted like tears, salty and wet, but their worries were washed away, and they were warm again in each other’s arms, glowing under the morning sun.

It was finally a truly beautiful, sunny morning.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This happened because Wilma sent me [this](https://twitter.com/4kihyuk/status/998154982145843200?s=19) on Twitter :')


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